East Germany Splits Berlin With Wall

Started on Aug. 13, 1961, the government of East Germany built a wall cutting off West Berlin completely from surrounding East Germany. The wall stood until 1989, preventing nearly all defections from East Germany to West Berlin and subsequently other Western nations, though that was not officially the wall's purpose. The communist government, in naming the Wall the "Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart," sought to imply that West Germany was still under Nazi rule.